


His Replacement

by colepaldigirl



Series: Two Years Before, When You Were Mine [3]
Category: British Actor RPF, Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:31:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8297635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colepaldigirl/pseuds/colepaldigirl
Summary: Peter travels back from NYCC 2016 still thinking over his past relationship with Jenna and the way it ended. A few months later a visitor turns up at his door. Jenna wants to learn the guitar... and repair their friendship, but Peter has realised a few painful truths and there is no guarantee things will ever be the same again. In progress, probably has typos, will fix sometime soon!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This, like the others, is RPF - notes on my bio.

_Maybe you'll get a replacement,_

_There's plenty like me to be found...._

Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

 

**London, March 2017**

Peter was trying very hard to ignore the doorbell. It was rare he got the place to himself these days, Elaine was working away less and whenever he arrived back home for a weekend she was waiting. Not waiting in a ‘here’s your dinner, I’ve missed you very much,’ way, more like a funnel web spider patiently waiting for prey to dissect.

Not today though. Her friends had dragged her to a spa hotel for the day, and night, telling her she always seemed so tense, so on edge, it would do her good, unwind, have a facial, Peter will cope for a day. She had resisted, always reluctant to leave him unsupervised since, well since she found out, even now months later when he hadn’t even _seen_ Jenna, let alone talk to her or conduct an extra marital affair. Elaine couldn’t let go of it, and he sort of didn’t blame her for that, but he prayed nonetheless her day out would help her relax because he was tired of bearing the brunt of her suspicion and temper.

He leaned back in the recliner and shut his eyes while the doorbell rang out again.

‘Just go away,’ he muttered. He was being a good boy. He worked in the week and came home at the weekends, every weekend, not like when he worked with Jenna. Then he would grab days and blame schedules and stay in his apartment with his beautiful adoring friend. Lover, she was his lover, his mind corrected. Even if Elaine never wanted to hear it again, he knew the truth, but it was long over. Now he faithfully trekked back to London, exhausted or not, lest his wife appear on his apartment doorstep in Wales with an accusatory look and a list of questions.

He wished he could sleep because as usual he was tired. Really tired. He had always found the job draining but never quite like this and he was sure it was because he lacked the joy and adrenaline working with Jenna gave him every day. The reason to get out of bed each morning at some ungodly hour. Her smiling face on the other side of the door when she came to his trailer at six am to collect him or bring him a coffee, or more often than not just say hi. They filmed largely in the summer when they did their series together. Bright mornings, bright smile. These days it seemed like a slog. It was winter and they were still going, everywhere gloomy and Pearl always running just a tad late. He laughed quietly with fondness, she was completely scatty, just the opposite of Jenna’s sensible, in control self.

Not always so in control with him. His mind wandered and laughter turned to warmth which spread down his body and made his hands tingle. He remembered her in his trailer more than once, the door locked and the lights out, panting in the dark, Jenna keening against his ear needfully, grinding down into his lap. He remembered one time, wanting her all day, dressed as she was as ‘Bonnie’ all red lips and severely cut black jacket. She’d teased him and played, knowing how good she looked, and by the end of the shoot he was dragging her into his space and tearing that jacket off her, aware of her lipstick smearing over his mouth, aware of the heat between her legs that gave away the truth that she had been wanting it too. They had started against the wall, going at it hard, before his knee gave way and he staggered back into the couch with a sharp cry. He’d managed to keep hold of her and Jenna had stopped immediately but he dismissed her concern, far gone as he was and desperate to finish.

He had to tell everyone he’d hurt it running down a corridor. She couldn’t look at him when he did.

The doorbell went again and he opened his eyes wearily. Probably some kids who had found out his address, or a fan who’d seen him park up when he got back from running the gauntlet of the shops a while ago. He’d just deal with them and then doze. It sounded like the ideal afternoon, sleeping, alone and undisturbed. At least it was as close to perfect as he was allowed to get these days.

He heaved himself out the recliner and ran his hands through his hair attempting to tidy himself slightly, after all they probably wanted a photo. Shoes off, he shuffled through to the front door, ignoring the aches and pains and bruises formed by a week of fighting monsters, and opened it slowly.

A short figure with its back to him was standing on the step, wrapped up in a heavy coat and scarf, a wool hat and carrying next to it a guitar case that looked big enough for it to sleep in. Peter frowned and as the light from indoors fell over the stairs and path the figure turned and looked at him.

He stared at her. ‘Jenna?’ he said his voice soft.

She looked out of place. As he looked at her he took in a hundred details, from the huge guitar case to the fluffy trims of her boots. Her fingerless woollen gloves letting her fingertips peek out as she , kept the case steady. Her pink scarf was enormous and thick and looked homemade and her matching hat cast shadows over her face. She stepped forward just a touch and then he could see her features better, fashionably angular these days, her youthful round cheeks long gone.

‘Hi,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought I’d drop round… on the off chance….’

There was an awkward silence. ‘The off chance of what?’ Peter said feeling suddenly wronged. What was she doing, turning up at his door after everything?

‘The off chance that you’d help me,’ she answered. ‘You seem like the person to ask,’ and she looked down at the guitar. Peter followed her gaze and shook his head slightly.

‘What?’ he felt like he was missing something important.

‘The guitar,’ Jenna said, ‘I’ve been trying to learn it but it’s harder than it looks and I know you play so…’

Peter looked at her in disbelief. ‘You came here, after everything that’s happened, everything that’s been said, to ask me to teach you the guitar?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

‘No,’ and he began to swing the door shut. Jenna quickly jammed the hard neck of the guitar case in the doorway, knowing he suspected that he wouldn’t want any damage to come to the instrument. ‘Please, she said, ‘Can’t I come in and talk? Can’t we be friends?’

He drew back and let the door open again, looked down at her sadly. ‘I’m not sure that’s possible,’ he said.

 

**Virgin Atlantic V26, En Route to London, Heathrow. October 2016.**

He used to enjoy the flight back. Sitting next to Jenna, chatting about the convention they had just done in New York, speculating about what was to come next in the series, doing silly voices, making each other laugh. He used to enjoy the fact they had a legitimate reason to be joined at the hip while on the plane, that they could whisper to each other in the dark when the lights went down, spread a blanket over their knees and let their hands wander. It was juvenile, he knew, but the whole scenario made him giggle while Jenna blushed and let her own fingers walk up his thigh.

It had been summer 2014 and New York had been a roller-coaster of adventure and fun for them; then they squeezed the last of that fun out on the flight before Elaine would meet with them in Mexico. He remembered every second of it and it was just as well. It was all he had left.

It was different now. A matter of routine as he toured the fandom. Not much fun at all, just long queues and longer days; no sense of adventure to a place he had been before. No Jenna. Sitting in standard class instead without her, Steven snoring next to him and Pearl filing her nails with an emery board. The scrape, scrape on one side and the snuffling on the other were slowly driving him mad. His head was nauseatingly painful after his last night in New York, the convention over and left to his own, inadvisable, devices.

He’d been in the bar most of the evening and then wandered lost back to the hotel where he’d suddenly chickened out of going back to his room to find Elaine. He’d sat on the cold steps instead and relived old memories until his mood plummeted alongside his temperature and he finally dragged himself inside. He wished he could be drunk or high or out of it so that he couldn’t think but he didn’t suppose that was going to happen now and he had this flight to catch so he reluctantly crawled down the corridor to his room. He supposed he could get some rest, if he could shut his brain off long enough.

Elaine was asleep which surprised him. He felt sure she would be quizzing him about his whereabouts and more importantly to her, Jenna’s whereabouts. Well, nothing to worry about there, she hadn’t spoken to him in all the time she was there, she’d flown back to the UK instead. Back to her boyfriend. She had things to do, Elaine informed him after she had carefully gleamed information about the woman he had had an affair with the previous year, things like see her boyfriend… the one she was living with currently, the one that had replaced him with obscene speed. Peter’s replacement. She took more than a little pleasure telling him and watching his heart break a little more. It was justice.

Peter stood by the bed and watched Elaine sleep, saw that the covers had rumpled and the tattoo of his name across her lower back was exposed. It should be romantic, it should say I love you forever, but instead it felt possessive in a back to front way. A name tag pointing to him as her partner when really she was the one in control and this mark would remind him daily that he was tied to her. She was his wife, her and no-one else, and that would never change.

He had thought once that he wanted it to change, tentatively tried to alter it, shyly prepared to suggest it to Jenna and failed. He remembered the evening in autumn, series nine mid broadcast, and he and Jenna in a quiet pub sharing a wholesome meal. They were lit by candlelight and watching the rain outside the window. He remembered Jenna telling him about filming her new series, how exciting and different and enjoyable it was, how wonderful the cast were.

Peter was half listening; he was building up to it, had been rehearsing it all the way across town, finding ways to say I Love You enough to start over, even at his age. They had been nothing but good together over the last year, he could make it work long term if that was what she wanted, as difficult and disruptive as it would be to go public, to leave Elaine, he’d do it for her.

And then he heard it, that something in her voice; saw it in her eyes as she sparkled and began to speak about another colleague, a young man called Tom. Tall, dark, acting opposite her in her show. He used to be in a band, she said, used to model. That sounds familiar, he joked but she didn’t see the irony, nor did she need to tell him more; he could see it right there in her face.

She looked back and realised he’d seen, something, and hesitated mid-sentence.

She and Tom weren’t yet together, she said and she dropped her gaze and dismissed the idea that they would be, but he’d seen more of life than her and felt it coming. She was tired of waiting, tired of being hidden, and soon she would be tired of him. Perhaps she was already.

And didn’t she deserve someone by her side, always? Someone who could give her a family? A future? Someone who wasn’t sliding towards retirement, who had done it all before, who would raise eyebrows to say the least.

Everything changed that evening but not in the way he had planned. He had thought he could leave Elaine and be with Jenna and take on all the troubles that would entail; but with sudden clarity he saw it was unfair on all of them and knew that it was impossible.

She apologised for talking so much about her friend Tom and he told her it was ok, reassured her easily. Too easily. She wanted to believe.

He remembered putting down his fork and just watching her speak, a picture of animation and beauty and life, and he knew he’d never see her again. Not like that. Not when she was still his; she was already slipping away.

In the NYC hotel a year later Peter sat down in the nearby chair and quietly opened the mini bar. Elaine would have a fit but she seemed to be out cold with her sleeping pill, so he opened the whisky and started with that. If he got drunk enough he would be able to stomach even the Bacardi by the end of the night. He woke up a few hours later with his wife noisily getting ready and drool on his shirt. He was still drunk he knew, because he started laughing at the state of himself. Laugh, cry, same thing.

On the plane he was suffering for it now of course and politely declined more alcohol as the air stewards went round the customers. He was wishing the journey away, wishing a quick return to normality when they landed. They were filming series ten, it was all new and engrossing and Jenna wasn’t there. He’d just immerse himself in it and try to forget.

The way he’d been trying all year.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**London March 2017**

He let her in. He was powerless against her, especially when she gave him that look, with those eyes, and shuffled her feet because it was cold. Her nose and cheeks were slightly red and Peter could feel the bitter snow in the air as it whistled down the warm hallway. He let her in and ushered her and the ridiculous oversized guitar case to the kitchen diner.

It made him nervous to see her in there so he set about making coffee just the way she liked it while she unpeeled layers of wool and discovered herself under her coat. She was a changed woman, he observed as the kettle boiled. She’d always been tiny but now it was clear the new angles of her face spread to her body. She wore impractical fur boots despite the weather, with chunky wedge heels several inches high. Sailor style navy trousers with double buttons and a flimsy cream blouse that buttoned up the back. No wonder she had been freezing. He watched her choose the seat closest to the radiator and surreptitiously warm her hands on it, still wearing her gloves. He placed the mug in front of her and she glanced up unexpectedly.

‘That was quick,’ she said, ‘How did you know…?’ she stopped mid-sentence at his expression. Stupid question, he knew her inside out, she knew that. How to make her coffee and a thousand other things.

Peter sat opposite her and waited while she sipped her drink.

‘So I’ve been trying to teach myself,’ she started nodding at the guitar case , ‘You know simple things like scales and a few chords but I don’t know if it’s the guitar or me, or my stupid tiny hands but I can’t seem to get a clean sound from…’

‘Jenna,’ he cut her off. ‘What are you doing here?’

She looked up from swirling her drink. ‘Asking for help with the guitar?’ she said. Peter watched her in frustration.

‘What are you really doing here?’ he asked again. ‘Don’t piss me about Jenna.’

‘I want to improve,’ she said sticking to her previous answer but looking a little taken aback, ‘and you’re the best guitarist I know, believe me other people have tried to teach me. My dad, my friend Luke, Tom…’

Peter found himself flinching at the name, and she saw it.

‘He’s had some success,’ Jenna said trying to keep things light, ‘But I don’t think he has the patience…’

‘And I do?’ Peter muttered.

A beat while she adjusted her expression. A mix of enforced calm and false superiority. ‘I’d like to surprise him,’ Jenna said, ‘You know show up one day and just be brilliant,’ she laughed nervously and Peter felt his face darken. Hers fell a little and her anxiety showed through.

‘You want me to teach you how to play…. when _he_ has failed…. So you can _impress_ him?’ Peter summarised slowly. ‘What in God’s name do you expect me to say to that?’ he growled. ‘How dare you come around here, knowing precisely how that ridiculous request will make me feel, and suggest it anyway, pretending you’re oblivious or worse that it doesn’t matter.’

He saw her look away from him and then just as quickly look back, eyes wet and face flushed with anger.

‘It does matter!’ she exclaimed, ‘Why else would I come here? I could get lessons anywhere, but I’ve come to you.’

Peter pushed back his chair and stepped away from her, tugging handfuls of his thick hair in frustration. ‘Lessons! Seriously? How can you do this to me?’ he asked. ‘why can’t you just leave me alone? You made your decision, you’ve taken your choice, now it’s as though you’ve come here to gloat…’

‘No, no that’s not it at all!’ Jenna protested. ‘I came because I want to rebuild our friendship.’

He stared and then he laughed shortly, a harsh sound, pinning her with his eyes to her chair. He rarely lost it but he could feel it building now. Half of him wanted to tell her to leave and avoid it, half wanted to give her the full force of his accumulated anger, frustration and misery. He tried to gauge her response. Would it even get him anywhere? He saw her shift a little nervously but she stood her ground.

‘Please, Peter,’ she said, ‘Sit down. Talk to me. We can fix this.’

Again he let out an exasperated breath, and bent to lean on the table before her. ‘What you did last year Jenna, nearly destroyed me,’ Peter said to her levelly, ‘Friendship isn’t an option anymore.’

 

**Wales October 2016**

Back on the treadmill and thank god for it, Peter was slowly recovering from the unexpected heartache that had been NYCC, a place full of remembrances and ghosts that had done nothing but trigger memories. Elaine was in London and he was deep into catching up on the shoot, his mind full of lines and directions and creativity and aliens and he could deal with that a whole lot better than emotions.

He managed to keep his head down and get on with the job for a few days before the proverbial really hit the fan. Of course the crew kept an eye on media columns and internet gossip sites as much as anyone else and if Jenna’s name surfaced, as it had with Prince Harry, news soon got round. The difficulty this time was many of the crew were aware of a certain tension between Peter and his former cast mate, so at first there was just a whisper, a hushed rumour he couldn’t quite catch. He tried to ignore the sympathetic looks he was given and those that had less sympathy. He tried just to rehearse, learn lines and film.

Until one day when the lines wouldn’t come and he was tired and distracted. He grabbed a half hour in his trailer and sat alone at the table staring at a laptop which was as yet off. He rarely used it these days, technology wasn’t his friend and it was more often than not Pearl who came in to borrow it and read her emails on a big screen.

He punched the on button and watched it slowly boot up. Watched the TARDIS come into view as his wallpaper. It had always been his family before the last few weeks, but then his feelings became so mixed he swapped it for something safer. Peter got up and made coffee while the old computer groaned and whirred and eventually signalled it was ready to be used. He checked his email and found nothing of interest and then brought up explorer.

Google.

He bit his lip. Maybe he should just leave well alone. Whatever the gossip was he couldn’t change anything just by knowing about it. Whatever it was it was none of his business now. He hadn’t seen Jenna for a while and she’d been positively cool at the convention. His sensible side advised him not to look, not to torment himself, just do something else.

But the whispers were tempting and they made his heart flutter nervously. He quickly typed in her name and brought up the news section. A dozen headlines from different sites and newspapers popped up. A dozen headlines with a dozen photographs, Jenna and Tom, in and out of character, the great onscreen romance mirrored in life.

A sharp pain in his heart and Peter felt for a moment like he couldn’t breathe. The great onscreen romance; he had shared one of those with her too, greater in fact, but it had never been translated to life, not publicly. Privately he would have given her the stars. Now he was scrolling through the shots taken by long lensed cameras. Jenna and her lover, leaving her home, sharing a car, arriving at a restaurant, browsing an estate agent, visiting a large property worth a million.

He froze and felt his jaw clench.

House hunting.

She was house hunting with the man she was currently living with. Had apparently been dating for a year.

Peter slowly put down his mug, the ceramic coming into contact with the table almost silently, and sat motionless for a moment in front of the computer. He could feel it welling up inside him, a tumbling, free form loss of containment; an inability to endure any longer. Fatigue, left over jet lag and hangover, the instability of his marriage and the long days on set. And in the back ground always, Jenna. Losing her, seeing her with another man, watching their lives develop in ways his never would now. Watching Tom smile, and laugh and touch her, his girlfriend, his Jenna.

Suddenly Peter stood and grabbed the old laptop, hurling it across the kitchen and watching it smash against the counter. He swiped the half full coffee mug to one side and tipped the table, letting out a harsh shout, before he finally covered his face and sank back to his chair, kicked half way towards the door now.

It didn’t make sense. Jenna had never laid down commitments before now. She valued her independence and always said she wasn’t ready. What was it about this dull young man that had so convinced her that this was it? Peter cursed Tom and cursed himself. He was bitter and angry and rejected and he should know better, act better; but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, because one fact was standing out above all the others he might negotiate away.

It hadn’t been that long, in the grand scheme of things, since Peter had been everything to her. Now reading the timelines guessed by the media it became clear that he and Tom had overlapped. She had sat in the pub and chatted about her show, and gone back to their bed and made love to him, weeks after she started seeing Tom.

Peter felt sick, his hands trembling at the realisation. Jenna had been cheating long before they said goodbye.

 

**London, March 2017.**

Still hanging in there, she wouldn’t back down. Jenna had a stubborn streak and if she had decided they would talk this out that’s what they would be doing. After glaring down at her for a minute longer Peter threw his hands up and snapped, ‘Fine, talk. Just don’t expect me to forgive forget and come around. You hurt me Jenna, you messed up.’

‘I know.’

‘Does he know?’ Peter asked, ‘That there were two of us?’

‘No,’ she confessed looking down at her gloved hands and picking at the fingerholes.

‘Isn’t he entitled to know?’

‘Probably… look can we concentrate on you and I?’

Peter laughed shortly, ‘Bit difficult when Tom is involved as well.’

‘Peter, Tom is my….’ She stopped and gathered herself, ‘Tom is my partner and that is not going to change. But you… I need you in my life. I know I messed up in a major way, but you’re one of the best friends Ive ever had and I want to set that straight. I miss you,’ she looked up at him with a bare expression and he looked away.

‘Its not that simple. I don’t just forgive and we’re ‘best friends forever’ or whatever people say now. It’s been awful Jenna, fucking awful, you have no idea what this has done to me, my marriage, my family. I can’t get past it.’

He slumped down into his chair again. ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘Even if you’d just said to me, you’d found someone, that you wanted a nice normal relationship with another thirty something, I could have understood that. But you didn’t say, you kept it from me and then when it did come out things were complex and messy and we weren’t speaking and…’ he leaned on one hand then ran it down over his face. ‘You were seeing us both at once, Jenna, ‘never mind the rest of it, the who did whats and whens, you were sleeping with me and seeing him for a time. That isn’t fair to anyone.’

‘I didn’t want to hurt…’ she started, ‘Oh that sounds ridiculous. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, ditch anyone….’

Peter looked at her calmly, ‘That’s what life is like, sometimes, preferably most of the time you have to tell the truth. I found out he was moving in with you on the bloody internet Jen, you could have just said. ‘I’m sorry Peter I’ve found someone.’ Just a few words. Instead you blanked me at the NYCC and left me wondering what the hell had happened to us.’

‘We were over anyway by then, Elaine had found out.’

‘Jenna you were seeing this guy for a year before that convention. During a period where Elaine didn’t know and you and I were still… oh what does it matter now,’ he scrubbed at his face again in utter fatigue. ‘None of it matters now, you’re with him, that’s the end of it.’

He could feel her watching him from across the table and knew instinctively neither of them knew what to do next. Eventually he glanced up at her.

‘I missed you too,’ he said. Jenna smiled slightly.

‘Peter we’re bigger than this, right?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he confessed.

‘Could we try?’

He sighed, ‘I… I don’t really trust myself not to just disintegrate every time I see you.’ Jenna nodded her response.

‘I guess I need to find another guitar teacher?’ she tried. He looked at her tiredly.

‘This isn’t a joke,’ he said, ‘You’ve no idea what its been like, how…’ he stopped again. She was one of his closest friends too, and he missed her, and really he should know better, accept the hand he had been given and stop brooding. They’d had a year, it had been incredible, maybe now was time to move on. She was trying to read his expression so he made a decisive move.

Peter patted the table and pushed himself up grabbing the guitar case. ‘Come on,’ he said striding through to the living room with Jenna following. He laid the case on the couch and flicked it open, half expecting to find no guitar and ask her if she had just been using it as an excuse. Inside however a beautiful cherry wood trimmed acoustic guitar lay waiting, clearly new, unused and scented. He inhaled the woody smell and it made him smile.

‘It’s lovely,’ he said. ‘Show me what you can do.’

Jenna smiled her first relaxed and true smile since arriving and reached to take the guitar.

‘Gloves,’ Peter said, ‘You can’t play with your mittens on, your hands should have defrosted by now,’

She giggled and pulled them from her fingers and reached again for the guitar he held out by its neck. For a moment he thought they might just crack their damaged friendship, they might just made repairs, and then a bright sparkle caught his eye and drew it back to Jenna’s hand. Peter’s heart leapt and he looked from her fingers to her dark eyes, something close to panic growing in them now, a knowledge she’d been careless and he’d seen and knew.

She was engaged.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Wales, March 2015**

They were on the sofa again in Peter’s apartment after a long day, but this time they had managed at least to get their clothes off. Jenna was sitting astride his hips, reaching for the bottle of red wine they had discarded to one side, open but not yet drunk. Peter had his eyes shut and was gently stroking her ribcage, down to her waist and around her back.

‘You pet me like a cat sometimes,’ she teased and he came out of his dreamlike state.

‘Something wrong with that?’ he asked.

Jenna took a sip of wine, the deep red resting on her lips for just a second, lending her colour where her lipstick had been blotted away by his skin. He softly stroked her hair back behind her ears while he waited for answer, but he didn’t get one. Her eye was caught by a flash of something and she grabbed his hand.

‘You’ve still got the ring on!’ she said indicating his Doctor ring, ‘Won’t props go mad at you?’

‘They will, they frequently do I’m always wandering off with it, they’ve had to make spares,’ he admitted looking at it. It had come away slightly from the wedding ring he wore on the same finger. Jenna followed his gaze.

‘You really never take it off do you?’ she asked with a hint of melancholy which drew his eye.

Peter frowned, ‘No, I mean I have in the past for roles, but it’ll just get lost if I have to take it off every day…’ he tilted his head and looked at her harder, ‘Does it… does it bother you?’

‘Your wedding ring?’ she asked, ‘The wedding ring you wore when you said your vows to a woman who isn’t here and doesn’t know what we’re doing and…’ she made a frustrated noise, ‘yes, yes it does bother me, I’m trying but it bothers me.’ The emotion seemed to well up suddenly inside her and he was taken aback.

‘Why didn’t you say something?’ he asked.

‘Because… because it’s your ring, what right have I to get all odd about it?’

Peter raised his eyebrows, ‘Every right,’ he said removing both rings, ‘Every right while you’re with me. I’m sorry, I should have thought.’ He tucked his wedding ring inside the pocket of his discarded trousers but kept the Doctor ring in his palm. Jenna looked at him curiously.

‘Ok?’ he said.

‘Yeah, sorry… better,’ She looked towards his closed fingers.

‘Jenna… you don’t know how much I wish things could be different,’ he said quietly.

‘I know…’ she said vaguely.

‘No, you don’t…’ Peter watched her face, drinking in each perfect feature and trying to quash the ache these moments always sent to his heart. He took her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips briefly, his eyes flicking up to meet hers. Jenna giggled self-consciously.

‘What are you doing, dafty?’ she asked. Carefully he unfolded her left hand and producing the doctor ring slid it over her ring finger. It was far too big, something which struck him as rather symbolic, she just wasn’t supposed to wear it in the long run; but for tonight, tonight she held her hand up and admired it, happy in the moment.

His.

**London, March 2017**

‘When were you going to tell me?’ Peter towered over her as she sat on his couch fiddling with the diamond ring she wore on her finger.

‘About the ring?’

‘About all of it!’ he spat, ‘The ring, the engagement, how serious it is with Tom.’

‘Well it’s a bit hard when you don’t seem to be speaking to me!’

‘I’m not speaking to _you_? Jenna you’ve been blanking me for months.’

‘What? I haven’t been blanking you, your wife warned me off remember?’

He spun away from her unable to deny Elaine’s perverse invitation to the house and the rules she had laid down.

‘Jesus were you going to mention it at all or were you just going to lay down a few chords and go home?’

Jenna stood swiftly, ‘Well given you’ve only just about let me in I didn’t thinking it was a particularly helpful topic to broach.’

‘On the contrary it’s about the most helpful thing you could have raised tonight. Please do fill me in, because I am clueless Jenna, I don’t know what’s gone on with you. How you’ve leapt into the arms of Mr Average in the last year and been satisfied with that? You’re worth more, much, much more than shacking up with him.’

‘Shut up you don’t even know him,’ she folded her arms and set her jaw.

‘I don’t need to know him, I _was_ him,’ Peter snapped. Jenna looked at him sharply.

‘What?’

Peter’s gestures were becoming more irritated by the second. ‘In a lousy band, bit of rubbish modelling, a period of time spent trying to convince people he can act, most of the work being done behind the scenes by his much more credible girlfriend? He’s a tall skinny drip who doesn’t have a clue how to treat women and won’t learn for at least another fifteen years and now you’re learning the guitar to impress him? Like you picked up a camera to impress me? Does he play? Does he know a chord or two? Is that as far as he got because it wouldn’t surprise me it’s about where I got to too.’

Jenna was staring wide eyed at him. ’You think… you think I’ve substituted you with a younger version.’

‘That’s what it looks like. A younger more socially acceptable version. We’ve been warned off each other by Elaine and by circumstance and we’re both trying to cope, Jenna. I’m burying my head in the sand, and you’re… you’re trying to fill the gap.’

He could see something behind her eyes that she was refusing to let out, something that made her lip quiver just a little and her eyes threaten to spill over with tears. There was a ghastly truthful silence. Finally, Jenna broke it with a voice that shook with emotion and feeling that exploded from her without warning.

‘Well… what would you like me to do, Peter? Waste the best years of my life alone? Mope about by myself in that big house? Get a few cats and focus on my career and eventually have people start pitying me because I never found the ‘One.’ Because that’s the other option…’

‘What…?’

‘Think about it. That’s how it will end because I will never get to have you will I? No matter how I might want it. We are just never going to happen; wrong generation, wrong relationship status, you’re not available,’ she shrugged in false nonchalance, ‘So either I rot away by myself or I take second best.’

Peter’s voice lowered and he stared at her incredulously, ‘Second best?’

Her dark eyes looked back at him rapidly, ‘You said yourself he’s ‘Mr Average.’ Sounds a bit egotistical but you’re basically right. He’s a watered downed version of you, Peter. There… I said it, you got to hear it after all. Does it make you feel vindicated? I’ve got the engagement ring and the house and the wedding plans but I’ve got the replacement, not the original and it’s not enough, it’ll never be enough!’

Her tears broke through and she covered her face.

‘Jenna…’ he sighed and the fight went out of him. This was so wrong. No-one was happy. Even Tom who had won the prize of Jenna’s superficial affection, hadn’t really won at all, and would one day realise and be miserable. Peter slumped onto the couch, their positions reversed as Jenna stood over him. ‘This is worse than I thought. Do you even love him?’ He looked back up at her, watched her remove her hands and wipe her cheeks; noted her tight expression.

‘It depends what you mean by love,’ she said tersely in response to his horrified look. ‘We get on, we have fun but I don’t _need_ him. I’ve learned to look after myself since we’ve been apart. I’ve tougher than I was before.’

‘Damaged,’ Peter said guiltily, ‘Damaged is the word you’re looking for. That’s my fault. I should never have been so weak, all its done is hurt you in the long run.’

Jenna said nothing and for a long minute they remained where they were. Peter didn’t know where to go from there, he sat forward on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. He was aware of Jenna unfurling herself from her defensive stance and he was almost afraid to speak in case she tensed again, or worse, ran. After another excruciating moment she came up in front of him and tapped his leg with hers, so he scooted across just a little and she slid in beside him.

The feel of her thigh against his, the scent of her perfume and shampoo just as it had always been; Peter bit his lip and closed his eyes briefly wondering what to do, where to take this awkward moment. At last he mustered up courage to look over at her and she held his eye sadly and somehow bravely too. At last she swallowed and looked down, her face pale.

Slowly, slowly, she pulled the ring from her finger and tossed it onto the coffee table in front on them.

‘Jenna?’

‘It shouldn’t involve him,’ she said quietly, ‘What happens between us, its shouldn’t involve Tom, that isn’t fair.’

Peter nodded slightly and saw her look cautiously at him out of the corner of her eye.

‘What do we do now?’ said. ‘Where do we go? We can’t be friends, there’s too much water under the bridge. We can’t be together…’

‘No, not without turning our lives upside down, hurting people in the process,’ Peter said sadly.

‘So we get to hurt instead,’ Jenna laughed painfully.

‘I guess so,’ he said softly, ‘I guess friends with limits is as good as it gets. Maybe we’ll adapt.’

Jenna looked down at the ground, sighed. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘It’s better than nothing, because I don’t think I can manage nothing, not after everything. it sounds like we just try to start over somehow, have some sort of friendship, some level of relationship that’s acceptable…’

‘I don’t know if I can,’ Peter admitted, ‘Or where I start… where we start. What do we do next? How does one go from this kind of intensity, this conversation to… I don’t know meeting for coffee once a month?’

‘I don’t think there’s a manual,’ she said, ‘but we’ve plenty in common. Plenty we can use to base a friendship on.’

‘Such as…?’

Jenna made a decisive movement with her head and pulled herself up straighter before reaching to fetch her guitar, sliding it onto her knee.

‘Such as this. I’m going to approach this afresh, like I’ve never done this before, starting again. The guitar, _us…_ It’s all new,’ she looked up hopefully and slowly strummed down each of the six strings. ‘So teach me?’

 

**Wales May 2015**

She was becoming a bit obsessive, perfectionist Jenna clearly taking the lead when it came to the photography. She’d come into his trailer one day when he was editing pictures. He was always taking pictures; the crew, the set, the fans, Jenna. Especially Jenna, posed and candid, snapping away while she did something else, while she was relaxed and unaware. She was so photogenic, not a single one looked wrong, but then he was a bit biased.

She leaned over his shoulder and watched his scroll through the latest batch, watched him zoom and tinker with the filters.

‘You are sickening,’ she said, straightening up and going to make tea.

‘Why?’ he hummed only half listening.

‘Your talent. Acting, painting, the guitar, and now photography. Everything you touch is brilliant.’

‘Average,’ he corrected, ‘I’m just average.’

Jenna came to sit beside him dumping two mugs on the table. ‘You are anything but, oh no, no Mr Average here. Mr Modest maybe. Mr Modestly-Brilliant.’

‘So I’m double barrelled now am i?’

‘Yes, like a double barrelled Mister Man.’

He frowned and pulled a bemused face, ‘What are you on about?’ he laughed.

‘You know, the Mister Men they all had names like Mr Tickles and Mr Happy.’

‘Oh,’ he chuckled, ‘Right.’

He turned back to the screen and they sat comfortably for a moment watching him work. He felt the tension of the day starting to fall away from him, his brain unwinding from the busy morning. The afternoon was set to be a little lighter, less pressured, they could have some fun without him having to squirrel himself away in a corner trying to keep long speeches in his head.

He heard Jenna ferreting about in her bag and looked up to find her sliding a rather fancy looking camera towards him.

‘Um…’ he said,’ what’s that?

‘Camera,’ she said innocently.

‘Why?’

‘Thought I could learn,’ she answered. He held her eye. ‘Thought maybe… you could teach me?’

‘Why are you suddenly so interested in photography…?’ he asked, feeling he was plainly missing something. Jenna sighed as thought to confirm it.

‘We need a reason,’ she said, ‘You know, to be seen together outside of here. I love spending time with you Peter but I feel like we are getting cabin fever. Trailers, apartments… we don’t even get to sit outside a café or go for a walk in the park because we have to be careful. With this we can legitimise ourselves. Oh look they’re out doing some photography, he must be teaching her…’ she looked at him meaningfully.

Slowly Peter’s smile widened. ‘I like it,’ he said, ‘But you realise that I will probably get distracted by the actual camera and actual pictures.

Jenna looked at him wearily, ‘Yes, I know you will, but at least I get to hang out with you, right?’

Peter picked up her little camera and turned it on, pointed it at her face. No time like the present.

‘Say cheese,’ he said.

 

**London March 2017**

 

Peter hesitated a moment watching her expression and reading what lay there. Starting their friendship again, as though nothing had happened, he didn’t even know if that was possible. Starting afresh with no old hang ups or expectations as though meeting her for the first time. That was definitely doomed; he’d loved her from day one. But what was the alternative? Never see her again? Lose her forever? He couldn’t. He would just have to be a friend, better that than out of her life entirely. The last few months told him that.

‘OK…’ he started and shifted in his seat, and nodded at the guitar, ‘Show me some basics, what have you been trying?’

Jenna seemed to sigh with relief as she focused on placing her fingers on the frets. ‘I’ve been doing some chords but they always sound sort of… fuzzy.’

‘Go on,’ he directed and watched her form an ‘E’. She strummed and it buzzed. He smiled. ‘You need to push down vertically, your fingers are at an angle, here…’ he altered her grip, ‘You actually need quite a lot of strength in your fingers, people forget that, press directly down and hold with your fingertips….’

He watched her try changing chord to ‘A’ and then ‘G’ but it looked difficult, too much of a stretch and he concluded quickly that the neck of the instrument was proving too thick for her hands.

‘You need a three quarter size,’ he observed. Jenna looked up.

‘A what?’

‘A three quarter size guitar, narrower neck, suitable for tiny hands.’

‘I do not need a baby guitar!’ she protested, ‘I can do this… I just need my fingers to…’

‘Stretch? He raised his eyebrows, ‘Well I suppose there are exercises to make them more flexible but really, you’re tiny and need a tiny guitar.’

‘But I have this one now!’ she said. ‘I like this one!’

Peter stood up, ‘That one will never fit you, it just won’t you can’t slim it down or make your hands bigger, you just need to accept that… now I have a small guitar, from back when my Cissy was learning,’ he walked to the corner of the room behind an armchair and rummaged about. Here lay a supply of musical bits and bobs which had come with them when they moved house. Before the move they had lain abandoned in various nooks and crannies and now they were all reunited. The corner of the sitting room had become some sort of musical graveyard where abandoned instruments went to die. He extracted the little three quarter and brought it over. Jenna watched as he sat next to her nimbly tuning its old strings.

‘Right,’ he said passing it to her, ‘Try that.’

She accepted it less than graciously, ‘It’s dusty …. And I don’t need a baby…’ she slipped her hand around the neck. ‘Hey that’s…’

‘Comfortable?’

‘Yes! God that’s so much better,’ she laughed, ‘I’ve been trying to make the other one fit, or me fit it, it was turning into a real point of contention, seriously every time I tried to use it I just came away angry, but this one… it’s like it was made for me.’ She grinned and he smiled back.

‘Play me something then,’ he said just to break the eye contact.

Jenna looked down for a moment and then carefully positioned her fingers. He immediately recognised the intro to _Starman._ He let her slowly and carefully play out the first verse and then hesitate trying to adjust her fingers.

‘Odd choice of song for you,’ he mused. Jenna said nothing for a moment.

‘Well if you have to teach me we might as well use songs you like,’ she commented without looking round.

‘First one I learned too,’ he said, knowing she knew that. She tensed a little but didn’t reply. She pressed her lips together tightly.

Peter could feel it, that thing between them that had caused all this bother in the first place; that tension rising up again within just minutes of setting aside their differences and agreeing to be friends. She always did that to him, he couldn’t escape it; the scent of her and her warmth. He saw her start chewing her lip now and shutting her eyes briefly. Everything they had tried so long to resist was back in the room and both of them knew it. Disaster was looming. He ahd to be the grown up and avert it.

‘Jenna, maybe…’

‘Help me get this one,’ Jenna said cutting him off, ‘I find it really tricky, the ‘G’, I have to stretch too far…’

He paused and saw her wait nervously next to him for a beat before he moved so that he was more at her back than before. She turned to facilitate his movement and let his arms encircle her, one hand covering her right, and the other demonstrating the chord to her.

‘Rotate your wrist, it gives your fingers height, see. Try it...’

Peter removed his hand again and watched her try, this time getting it and strumming a few more lines of the song. By now Peter was tight against her back, his breath hitting her hair and neck as he tried to look anywhere but her, her cheek, the swell of her breasts below. At last he glanced down at her collar, hoping for a neutral view but found instead a line of tiny buttons on her blouse, leading down her spine. He laughed.

‘Jenna your blouse is on back to front.’

She laughed lightly. ‘It’s supposed to be like that, now shh, I’m getting this,’

She was absorbed and enjoying her smoother progress so he let her continue, but the temptation of the odd little buttons was too much and he curiously popped the top one open. She didn’t flinch or notice. How did she get out of this thing without help? Then he remembered Tom and his jealousy reared again. That was how she got out of it, Tom would help her undo these at the end of each day she wore it. Peter must have tensed because Jenna briefly asked him if he was OK, but carried on playing. He reassured her and went back to staring at the buttons.

He popped a second one open and _this_ time she noticed, her head turning just slightly before she seemed to reconsider and turned back. For Peter he felt as though her scent had intoxicated him and he could no longer think. He shouldn’t be doing this or even thinking it, hadn’t they just agreed that, to a have a fresh start as friends? But he couldn’t stop himself as his lips brushed the newly exposed skin. It was part habit, part jealousy, part raw attraction.

Jenna breathed in sharply but didn’t say no. A third button popped, a brush of his lips again, then a fourth. He could feel himself getting firmer and his heart racing; and he could feel Jenna’s too, as she pressed back against his chest and he wrapped his arm around her waist. He dipped down to kiss her neck again and suddenly she had twisted in his hold, knocking the guitar off of her lap with a musical clatter, and grabbing roughly at his jaw.

She kissed him like she needed him for life, pushing him back on the couch so that she could crawl onto his lap and straddle him hungrily. She held his face so hard he thought he might bruise and kissed him so deeply her teeth hit against his briefly. He was overwhelmed and tried for a moment to slow her down, to stop her, apologise for starting this and to be the man he had just promised to be, before he realised that that man wasn’t at all who she wanted. She wanted this, him, now.

Peter brought his hands up to the buttons he had just opened and she wriggled slightly, breaking the kiss and helping him rip the thing from her, then she was pushing against him, all curves and skin and heat and kisses, running her hands into his hair, scrabbling to undo his own shirt, impatient and wanting. He could feel the heat of her sex through her trousers against his thighs and dropped his own hands to her waist to remove them. They had to break contact briefly to disrobe entirely and it felt cold and painful to do so before Peter had her in his arms again and spun her down onto the couch where she wrapped her legs around his hips and continued to lathe her tongue over his neck and chest, sucking a nipple then flickering across the hardened bud.

He briefly thought again of the first time together, on a different couch in a different building and knew the same memory was passing through Jenna’s mind when she suddenly looked up into his eyes.

‘Déjà vu,’ she said, ‘God… I’ve wanted this…’

‘We’re supposed to be starting again,’ he panted, ‘Not getting ourselves into the same problems.’

‘We _are_ starting again, it’s just this time we know where the pitfalls are…’

‘And…?’

She held him steady, her thumbs rubbing his cheeks. ‘And this time we have to be truthful…’

‘Truthful to who? Because I don’t think Tom, Elaine or anybody else around us will appreciate this…’

‘Probably not, _definitely_ not,’ she corrected, kissing him between every phrase, ‘But we’ve already tried to make it up to them… or move on and actually that’s being even less fair. No… we have to be truthful to them… and to do that… we have to be truthful…’

‘… to ourselves?’

‘To ourselves,’ Jenna smiled and he only had a moment to respond to it in kind before she was making clear what she wanted with her body, pushing up against him, working her hips, aligning her pelvis with his. The whole thing was rushing past him, through him, the knowledge that soon he would be with her, inside her, experiencing that rush of union and release the way he always had when with her. He’d missed her, god, he had missed her.

‘I missed you too,’ she whispered and he realised he had been saying it out loud. Peter kissed her to silence himself lest he let out any other secrets and felt her reach down for him, encouraging him, breaking the kiss so that he would adjust their height difference and enter her.

Familiar yes, but exciting and new none the less. This wasn’t an affair. It wasn’t teenage fumbling on their sofa at the end of a shoot or meeting up in the park with a camera and a flask like a pair of pensioners. This was the two of them together and something told him this was how it was going to be. That they would tell the world, that come hell or high water, disapproval and all the fallout from that, they had each other now, always.

She was hot under and around his, and demanding as he pounded into her, losing control quickly. So much time had passed, he was desperate for her now and she rose to meet him, keening against him, biting the lobe of his ear. She was flushed and her skin was damp, sticking to his own where they pressed together, driving forward to a climax which his them suddenly and powerfully, Jenna shouting out uninhibited and arching her back under him.

Peter slipped from her a moment later and Jenna tiredly pulled herself up to the pair of them could sit entwined, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder. He could feel her shaking, part from the arousal and effort just expended, and partly from the relief of being together again. He rocked her slightly and stroked her hair; felt his shoulder grow damp under her cheek.

‘Sorry,’ she murmured.

‘Oh Jenna you have nothing to apologise for,’ he said.

She sniffed, ‘It’s generally a bit offensive if a girl cries after sex.’

‘Oh the contrary, to be that honest takes a lot of trust….’

He felt her smile and nuzzle his skin, felt the shaking subside gradually.

‘Unless of course,’ he added, ‘It was terrible sex?’

Jenna snorted. ‘No. Not the case.’

‘Good.’

After a number of minutes, close, warm, satisfied, Peter looked around the room, at the abandoned guitars and at the vestiges of his dead marriage. He sighed heavily and Jenna took it as a cue to sit up.

‘Ok?’

He smiled sadly,’ I will be. But now that we’ve made the decision I don’t’ want this to have to be secret for any time at all, I just want to lance the boil if you will. If I’m going to leave, I need to leave.’

She nodded. ‘You can come stay with me.’

‘What about Tom?’ he asked reluctantly, ‘You’ve got the whole set up there, the ring and the house…’

‘House is mine…’ Jenna said quietly and he caught her eye. ‘Just mine.’

‘You didn’t put it in both your names?’ Peter asked curiously.

‘I guess deep down I knew he wasn’t the One. I made some reason up at the time. I didn’t want that commitment.’

‘But you got engaged?’

‘You can take a ring off, it’s just symbolic. A house is harder to deal with, you know, lawyers and courts potentially. It’s a minefield when money is concerned. But a ring I just give back and it sends a message.’

Peter breathed out hard and looked down at his wedding ring. ‘It sends a message,’ he said with a slightly wavering voice of mixed feeling. ‘We’re thirty years to unravel. It’s a little more difficult for me. This represents decades and everything that happened during them as well as the material things but…’ he sighed and flexed his hand, looked at the ring for a moment as though committing it to memory. ‘But it’s done with, it’s over and taking this off? It’s a start…. A fresh start… with you.’ He looked up at Jenna.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

Peter pulled the gold band from his finger, and leaning forward placed it gently on the table next to Jenna’s engagement ring. Symbols of lives with loved ones, ended by their joint decision. Bittersweet but needed. They had failed to survive apart.

Now they would face everything together.


End file.
